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The Broad Institute, Boston Children’s Hospital, and Maine’s Jackson Laboratory announced a collaboration Tuesday to develop gene therapies for people with rare diseases and to make the life-saving therapies cheaper and more accessible to patients.

With relatively few gene therapies on the market, families of children with rare genetic disorders have few options but to partner individually with researchers and raise millions of dollars to develop treatments for their conditions.

The newly formed non-profit Center for Therapeutic Genetics will create precision medicines and share those methods, data, and training with other clinicians so they can do the same. The goal is to make these personalized treatments more like clinical procedures, such as organ transplants, so doctors don’t have to seek separate regulatory approvals for each use, said Winston Yan, founding director of the new center.

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Rise and shine, everyone, another busy day is on the way. Sadly, gray skies are hovering over the Pharmalot campus again, but our spirits remain sunny, nonetheless. Why? We recall a bit of insight from the Morning Mayor, who taught us, “Every day should be unwrapped like a precious gift.” To celebrate the notion, we are firing up the trusty tea kettle for a cuppa ginger peach and invite you to join us. Meanwhile, here are a few items of interest. Hope you have a meaningful and productive day and, of course, do stay in touch. …

Novo Nordisk sued Eli Lilly for allegedly running a “deceptive” ad campaign that uses “outdated clinical trials” to make its obesity and diabetes drugs appear more effective, marking a new phase in one of the pharmaceutical industry’s most intense rivalries, STAT tells us. In a lawsuit filed in federal court in New Jersey, Novo argued that Lilly has been comparing the highest doses of its weight loss drug Zepbound and diabetes drug Mounjaro with lower doses of Novo’s Wegovy and Ozempic. Novo claimed Lilly’s ads, which have been broadcast nationally and been disseminated on social media platforms like TikTok and Facebook, are “causing irreparable harm.”

Biotech companies are lobbying the Trump administration to exclude treatments for rare diseases from programs that lower brand drug prices in Medicare, STAT reports. The Rare Disease Company Coalition met last week with the White House Office of Management and Budget to discuss two pilot programs that are part of President Trump’s plan to get drugmakers to lower prices in the U.S. to levels charged in other rich countries, a policy generally referred to as most-favored nation. The OMB is reviewing both pilots: the Guarding U.S. Medicare Against Rising Drug Costs, or GUARD, Model, which would apply to Part D retail drugs, and the  Global Benchmark for Efficient Drug Pricing, or GLOBE, Model, which would apply to physician-administered drugs in Part B. 

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Good morning. Sending thoughts and prayers to all the bagged salad girlies out there. For news, don’t miss Sarah Todd’s great story on THC beverages, which was spurred by a colleague’s rant in one of our regular team meetings. 

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Novo Nordisk on Tuesday sued Eli Lilly for allegedly running a “deceptive” ad campaign that uses “outdated clinical trials” to make its obesity and diabetes drugs appear more effective, marking a new phase in one of the pharmaceutical industry’s most intense rivalries.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court in New Jersey, Novo argued that Lilly has been comparing the highest doses of its weight loss drug Zepbound and diabetes drug Mounjaro with lower doses of Novo’s Wegovy and Ozempic.

“What has brought us to this moment is what we now see as a nationwide pattern, by Lilly, of deceptive advertising. They are intentionally confusing consumers,” John Kuckelman, Novo’s general counsel and senior vice president, said in an interview.

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Nabla, the Paris-based maker of ambient scribes used to automate clinical documentation, says it’s playing the long game. On Tuesday the company announced a new leader and reiterated its commitment to fundamentally new AI technology it believes can help it beat the competition.

The company, which last raised a $70 million Series B last summer, announced a new CEO, Brian Manning, who has served as chief revenue officer at care coordination software company PatientPing and its acquirer, Bamboo Health, before taking over as Bamboo’s president. The shift “marks the next phase of Nabla’s go-to-market strategy,” the company wrote in a press release.

“We really haven’t built our brand in the United States. We really haven’t accelerated our go-to-market in line with what others are doing. And as we look towards 2027, that’s something we’re absolutely going to be doing,” Manning said in an interview with STAT. Chief operating officer Delphine Groll said that 100% of the company’s revenue is from the U.S.

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WASHINGTON — Biotech companies are lobbying the Trump administration to exclude treatments for rare diseases from programs that lower brand drug prices in Medicare.

The Rare Disease Company Coalition met last week with the White House Office of Management and Budget to discuss two pilot programs that are part of President Trump’s plan to get drugmakers to lower prices in the United States to levels charged in other rich countries, a policy generally referred to as most-favored nation.

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The Trump administration is centralizing and politicizing science grantmaking to an unprecedented degree. Most recently, the Office of Management and Budget proposed a rule to require political appointees to review grants and ensure the projects they fund “demonstrably advance the President’s policy priorities” and do not “facilitate” any “initiatives that … promote anti-American values.” If the new rule takes effect, the government will be able to terminate a grant if it no longer “effectuate[s] … the national interest” — in other words, if it’s no longer to the president’s liking.

The comment period on the proposed rule ended July 13. Before it can take effect, the OMB must still finalize the rule, which the agency aims to do by the end of August.

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Covid fatigue is real, but policymakers and policy influencers need to wake up to something important: Post-pandemic polarization threatens to lock our memories into attractive, untrue conclusions that will leave us unprotected next time.

When Covid-19 first arrived, there was little historical experience to guide response. After watching catastrophic results and stress on the health care systems in China, Italy, and Iran, American states rapidly invoked many measures simultaneously to combat a virus with proven destructive power: masks, social distancing, and school and business closures. They turned to the 1918 flu pandemic to understand the importance of rapid and society-wide response.

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NEW YORK — It’s easy to miss the cannabis beverages that line the refrigerated sections of grocery stores, bodegas, and delis throughout New York City. The rainbow-like array of cans — bearing names such as Oasis, Cann, Milonga, Cycling Frog, Tempter’s, Gigli, and Mighty Kind — often look indistinguishable from iced tea, probiotic sodas, and other wellness-coded “functional beverages” that share their shelf space. 

In font sizes that range from prominent to squint-worthy, the cans’ labels note that they contain THC, the psychoactive compound found in cannabis. But most of the 10 stores visited on a recent scouting trip through South Brooklyn, some within a couple blocks of schools, displayed no signs indicating that these were intoxicating beverages, nor did they ask for identification when the drinks were brought to the register. 

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WASHINGTON — Federal health officials said Monday they remain focused on lettuce from Taylor Farms as the source of a multistate outbreak of a diarrhea-causing parasite, despite inaccurate test results that the government briefly publicized over the weekend.

Food and Drug Administration officials on Monday said a laboratory test incorrectly identified a positive result for cyclospora on a sample of lettuce from Taylor Farms. The FDA posted the finding to its website on Saturday but then said Sunday that the result had been a false positive.

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The insurer, which disclosed the breach in a securities filing late last week, doesn’t yet know how many people may have had their data accessed or what type of data was exposed.

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Hello, everyone! I’ve seen upwards of 50,000 public comments on proposed health care regulations, but the 200,000 comments (!) on the SEC’s proposal to eliminate quarterly financial reports is jaw-dropping. Yes, a lot of them seem like automated templates from interest groups, but still. Some poor soul has to sift through them. I’d like to see you try to send 200,000 comments here (please don’t): bob.herman@statnews.com.

Site-Neutral Milk Hotel

The most consequential policy in Medicare’s recent outpatient rule is the cuts to drugs that hospitals get under the 340B discount program. But the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services subtly doubled down on another major policy that hospitals loathe.

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One of Rhode Island’s most-wanted fugitives — a former doctor convicted of sexual assault but on the run for 20 years — appears to have been living a secret life as a biotech executive. 

Ronald Fischer, 70, was arrested last week by federal and Rhode Island authorities after they tracked and boarded a 56-foot sailboat cruising off the coast of New Jersey. The former anesthesiologist disappeared in 2005 while on trial for first-degree sexual assault.

The boat was registered under the name Richard Graydon, an alias used by Fischer, U.S. Marshals said. That is the same name as a doctor and seasoned drug development executive hired last March by Immix Biopharma, a Los Angeles-based biotech company, as its new chief medical officer.

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Good morning. Yesterday’s game wasn’t the most exciting, but luckily the third place game on Saturday had all the drama I’d hoped for. Before replaying the highlights, catch up on a bunch of news below. 

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Good morning, everyone, and welcome to another working week. We hope the weekend respite was relaxing and invigorating because that oh-too-familiar routine of meetings, deadlines, and the like has returned with a vengeance. You knew this would happen, yes? To cope, we are relying, as always, on cups of stimulation. Our choice today is laced with traces of cocoa. Feel free to join us. Remember, no prescription is required. Meanwhile, here are some tidbits to help you along. Best of luck accomplishing your goals today and, of course, do keep in touch. …

Novo Nordisk, maker of Ozempic and Wegovy, lists the telehealth company LifeMD on its website as a provider that offers “legitimate medicine sourcing and patient support” for people seeking GLP-1 drugs. But some former employees describe LifeMD differently, as a company that has sought to maximize the volume of prescriptions it doles out at the expense of patient safety, STAT reports. Former workers told STAT that providers were pressed to expedite their work to a pace that was not clinically responsible, with two of them saying providers at times were expected to review the cases of 25 people per hour based only on electronic forms the patients filled out — the equivalent of spending about two minutes on each case.

A recent audit of Iowa Medicaid records revealed how pharmacy benefit managers are using complicated and sophisticated approaches for handling prescription drug claims that ultimately overcharge taxpayers, a finding that underscores controversy surrounding these crucial middlemen in the pharmaceutical supply chain, STAT explains. The audit found that one large pharmacy benefit manager appeared to have made more than $100 million by adjusting the amount of money paid to pharmacies without passing some of the savings back to managed care plans working on behalf of the state, according to Iowa officials. The review scrutinized records from 2019 through 2021.

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It’s officially a trend. For the third time in nine months, a pharma company has announced that it is assembling the largest AI supercomputer in the life sciences industry. This time, it is Bristol Myers Squibb. 

When the company began its partnership with NVIDIA three years ago with a smaller computing cluster, it was focusing on simpler problems with individual AI tools, like protein structure prediction. But “we actually consumed all the space we had,” said Greg Meyers, chief digital & technology officer at BMS.

Adding extra computing power is necessary for the company now that it’s “become more convinced” that computationally hungry foundation models can give the company valuable insight into how its drug candidates interact with both the body and with disease, Meyers said in an interview with STAT. He mentioned oncology and neurodegeneration as examples of areas where BMS has developed such models.

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Pandemics like the great influenza of 1918-1919 and Covid-19 are often viewed and treated as health care challenges. That view, however, is far too narrow. They should be viewed and combated as threats to national security, too.

Why treat pandemics as national security threats? Because that’s what they are. Framing the danger this way would inform and motivate reforms that strengthen our pandemic defenses and reduce the devastation pandemics inflict.

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A recent audit of state Medicaid records revealed how pharmacy benefit managers are using complicated and sophisticated approaches for handling prescription drug claims that ultimately overcharge taxpayers, a finding that underscores controversy surrounding these crucial middlemen in the pharmaceutical supply chain.

The audit of Iowa’s state Medicaid program found that one large pharmacy benefit manager appeared to have made more than $100 million by adjusting the amount of money paid to pharmacies without passing some of the savings back to managed care plans working on behalf of the state, according to Iowa officials. The review scrutinized records from 2019 through 2021.

The overall conclusion was similar to audit results conducted in a few other states, but in this instance, the auditors identified what amounted to creative accounting maneuvers, which not only made it possible to obscure the flow of money but evade prohibitions on a controversial pricing practice that is now outlawed in Iowa and some other states.

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Novo Nordisk, maker of Ozempic and Wegovy, lists the telehealth company LifeMD on its website as a provider that offers “legitimate medicine sourcing and patient support” for people seeking GLP-1 drugs. But some former employees describe LifeMD differently, as a company that has sought to maximize the volume of prescriptions it doles out at the expense of patient safety.

Former workers told STAT that providers were pressed to expedite their work to a pace that was not clinically responsible, with two of them saying providers at times were expected to review the cases of 25 people per hour based only on electronic forms the patients filled out — the equivalent of spending about two minutes on each case.

The company also discouraged providers from asking what they felt were medically relevant questions to patients, so that they don’t “delay care,” former employees said.

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I remember standing outside an exam room, phone vibrating in my breast pocket, when the coroner’s call came through. I hadn’t wanted to believe the neighbor’s frantic text about a body bag removed from my husband’s condo, but the medical examiner’s office on my caller ID was unmistakable. I answered, and sounds fell out of my mouth into the phone: “Hello, this is Dr. Hardison.”

I am an emergency physician living in the U.S., and we had one of the top commercial health insurance plans. When my husband, Randy, became suicidal for the first time in his life, I thought I could find him the best care, our insurance would pay for it, and he would get better. Only one of those three things actually happened.

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When I first heard the announcement on Wednesday that the Department of Defense will begin a mandatory testosterone screening program for service members, my mind naturally leapt to a series of questions derived from my career studying men’s health and population-level screening in men’s health. In particular, I fear that the widespread rollout of testosterone screening may lead to some surprising and unintended consequences that must be carefully weighed if we want to prioritize the health of U.S. servicemembers.

As a practicing urologist and health outcomes researcher, I have seen firsthand how testosterone supplementation has received growing interest in recent years. I have also studied the impacts and implementation other types of screening tests, including among military servicemembers.  As with any type of population-level medical screening, a careful examination of risks and benefits is vital.

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First Opinion is STAT’s platform for interesting, illuminating, and provocative articles about the life sciences writ large, written by biotech insiders, health care workers, researchers, and others.

To encourage robust, good-faith discussion about issues raised in First Opinion essays, STAT publishes selected Letters to the Editor received in response to them. You can submit a Letter to the Editor here, or find the submission form at the end of any First Opinion essay.

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 As wildfires burn millions of acres across Canada, smoke has descended upon cities across the United States, with air quality plummeting to unhealthy levels. In New York City, emergency room visits for asthma exacerbations jumped by 31% by the end of the first day. The timing could not have been worse for a city already in the throes of the second major heat wave of the season.

Extreme weather events represent the cyclical and compounding relationship between fossil fuel combustion, a warming climate, natural disasters, and related illnesses. Some may view them as proof the climate crisis has already become insurmountable. However, history teaches us to never let a health-related environmental crisis go to waste.

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Pretty much everyone who cares about public health agrees that it’s a good idea to help people quit smoking, the No. 1 cause of preventable death in the U.S. Doctors may soon get some extra encouragement to lend a hand, thanks to proposed changes in Medicare’s physician fee schedules.

Physicians who offer counseling on quitting cigarettes or other tobacco products during visits with patients would get a 19% increase in reimbursement, according to a few paragraphs buried in the 1,592-page document released this week. The same adjustment would also apply to assessments of, and interventions for, alcohol and substance misuse during doctors’ visits.

“Given the evidence supported role these services play in preventing and managing chronic disease […] we believe that valuation should more accurately reflect the clinical intensity and work associated with these time-based services,” the proposal from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services explains. Comments on the proposal are due Sept. 14. 

“The prioritization of cessation as a service is long overdue, and we’re very excited about it,” said Anne DiGiulio, the American Lung Association’s senior director of nationwide tobacco cessation and health policy.

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Hiya. Today, we explore a gene therapy approach that’s drawing excitement but also skepticism, and see that Jennifer Doudna is moving into AI-designed gene editors that push beyond evolution. 

Plus, our trusty podcasters unpack the buzzy prediction market Kalshi’s move into biotech.

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And so, another working week will soon draw to a close. Not a moment too soon, yes? This is, you may recall, our treasured signal to daydream about weekend plans. Our agenda is rather modest. If the smoky skies ever clear, we will promenade with the official mascots. Regardless, we intend to escort Mrs. Pharmalot to a fancy bistro and watch some footie on the telly. We also hope to hold another listening party, where the rotation will likely include this, this, this, this and this. And what about you? This is a wonderful time to enjoy the great outdoors — surfing and crabbing come to mind. There’s also clubbing and pubbing if you prefer cityscapes. Or simply curling up with a good book is a beneficial alternative. Well, whatever you do, have a grand time. But be safe. Enjoy, and see you soon. …

The number of active medication shortages in the U.S. rose to 227 in the second quarter of 2026, continuing the upward trend since 214 in the third quarter of 2025, according to the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists. Just under half, or 48%, of all new shortages this year are sole-source products, or those made by a single manufacturer, 16% of active shortages are controlled substances, and 10% of all new shortages in 2026 are contrast agents used for potentially life-saving procedures, such as CT scans and MRIs.

Three years after buying Bellus Health and its chronic cough candidate camlipixant for around $2 billion, GSK is abandoning the program, Pharmaphorum points out. Data from a pair of Phase 3 trials in adults with refractory chronic cough found “limited efficacy demonstrated is unlikely to transform patient care” and GSK will no longer develop the drug for that indication. Camlipixant is in the P2X3 antagonist class, which has seen other drug candidates fall by the wayside. The results are a setback as GSK speeds ​development of new medicines and targets new assets to strengthen its ​late-stage pipeline and manage losses from patent expirations expected from 2028 onwards.

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Catholic Health and GE HealthCare announced Thursday, July 16, a 10-year strategic partnership valued at approximately $500 million that will bring more than 1,300 pieces of medical technology to hospitals and outpatient facilities across Long Island.

The agreement, structured as a long-term Care Alliance, represents one of the largest health technology modernization projects announced in the New York metropolitan region this year. It is designed to expand patient access to advanced imaging, precision diagnostics, monitoring systems and artificial intelligence-supported healthcare tools while creating a unified system for maintaining and replacing equipment across Catholic Health’s network.

The partnership will cover Catholic Health hospitals and ambulatory locations throughout Nassau and Suffolk counties, bringing new technology closer to patients who might otherwise need to travel farther for specialized testing or treatment.

The planned equipment expansion includes advanced imaging and diagnostic technologies used in radiology, cardiology, oncology, surgery and other areas of patient care. Artificial intelligence will also be deployed across scheduling, clinical operations, diagnostic workflows and patient monitoring.

For Catholic Health, the agreement is not simply an equipment purchase. The organization is entering a decade-long relationship that combines technology installation with maintenance, service support, workforce training and long-term planning.

That approach is intended to reduce one of the most persistent operational challenges facing large hospital systems: managing medical devices from different generations, manufacturers and service schedules while trying to maintain consistent care across multiple locations.

Under the partnership, Catholic Health will be able to coordinate equipment upgrades across its network rather than replacing machines individually as they become outdated or unreliable. The system is expected to help administrators better anticipate maintenance needs, improve equipment availability and reduce interruptions caused by aging technology.

The investment could also expand the number of procedures that can be performed at community hospitals and outpatient centers rather than at the system’s largest facilities.

That matters on Long Island, where population growth, an aging demographic and rising demand for outpatient care have placed increasing pressure on hospital capacity. Patients frequently face long waits for specialized imaging, and hospitals must balance the need for expensive new technology against competing staffing and infrastructure costs.

By adding equipment throughout the network, Catholic Health is seeking to make services more accessible while improving the consistency of care available across different communities.

The agreement also reflects a broader transformation underway in the healthcare industry. Hospitals are moving away from purchasing isolated pieces of equipment and toward long-term partnerships that combine hardware, software, data analysis, artificial intelligence and technical support.

Medical technology companies increasingly view these arrangements as a way to build recurring business relationships with health systems while helping hospitals plan capital spending over longer periods.

For healthcare providers, the model can reduce uncertainty by establishing a schedule for equipment replacement, upgrades and maintenance. It may also help hospitals avoid sudden capital expenses when critical machines fail or become obsolete.

Artificial intelligence will be a major part of the Catholic Health initiative, although the technology is expected to support clinicians and hospital operations rather than replace medical professionals.

AI-enabled systems can help prioritize imaging studies, identify abnormalities that require urgent review, automate measurements, assist physicians in comparing current and previous scans and reduce administrative work.

The technology can also be used outside the examination room. Hospitals are deploying AI to coordinate appointments, predict demand, manage patient flow, monitor equipment performance and identify operational bottlenecks.

When implemented effectively, those systems can shorten waiting times and allow nurses, technicians and physicians to spend more time directly caring for patients.

The Catholic Health agreement includes AI capabilities operating at several levels. Some will be embedded directly into medical devices. Others will assist individual hospital departments or connect information across the broader health system.

That integrated structure is important because many hospitals still operate with fragmented technology systems that do not communicate smoothly with each other. A hospital may have advanced imaging equipment but still rely on separate scheduling, maintenance and patient-record systems.

The 10-year arrangement is intended to create a more coordinated technology environment while allowing Catholic Health to continue updating its systems as new medical tools become available.

The partnership also gives GE HealthCare a major long-term presence in one of the country’s largest healthcare markets. Long Island is home to nearly three million residents and several competing hospital systems that are investing heavily in outpatient care, advanced diagnostics and digital health.

GE HealthCare said the alliance is designed to improve equipment reliability, operational efficiency and consistency of care. Catholic Health said the investment will help deliver advanced services closer to where patients live.

The agreement comes as hospitals nationwide confront higher labor expenses, costly construction projects and increasing demand for sophisticated medical technology. At the same time, many health systems are under pressure to control costs and move more services away from traditional hospital settings.

Outpatient imaging and diagnostic centers have become especially important because they can often provide services more conveniently and at a lower cost than hospital-based departments.

Catholic Health’s decision to distribute new technology across both hospitals and ambulatory locations suggests the organization is preparing for continued growth in community-based and outpatient care.

The financial impact of the project will extend beyond the two organizations. Medical equipment installation can require construction, electrical work, information technology integration and specialized training. The initiative may create opportunities for contractors, technology vendors, maintenance providers and local healthcare workers throughout the 10-year term.

The size and duration of the partnership also provide Catholic Health with a framework for future expansion. As patient demand changes, the organization will be positioned to add or replace technology without renegotiating an entirely new systemwide strategy.

For Long Island patients, the most visible result will be the arrival of newer equipment and potentially shorter travel distances for advanced care.

The larger test will be whether the investment improves appointment availability, reduces equipment downtime and helps Catholic Health provide the same level of technology across its entire network.

Implementation details, including the timing and locations of the first equipment installations, are expected to emerge as the two organizations begin rolling out the partnership.

JBizNews Desk | New York

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Specialized counseling services for LGBTQ+ youth will return to the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by the end of the year, the Trump administration confirmed last month. But young people looking to “press 3” for that support may encounter an altered experience, as federal health officials want to ensure the services comply with President Trump’s executive order last year that essentially denies the existence of transgender and nonbinary identities. 

The Trump administration shuttered the LGBTQ+ youth specialty services last July, but soon after, a congressional appropriations bill directed $33.1 million toward reinstating the line. The law indicates that services should support all LGBTQ+ youth. 

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Every day, doctors turn to specialized calculators to make decisions about their patients’ care. Kidney performance? There’s a calculator for that. Chance of a successful vaginal birth after a previous C-section? There’s a calculator for that. 

Medicine has accumulated hundreds of these clinical scores and decision-making tools, and their numbers continue to grow along with the scale of clinical data. But just because a calculator exists doesn’t mean doctors should always trust its output. 

“In clinical practice, a lot of the tools that we use, we genuinely have no idea how limited it is in its validation,” said health systems researcher and gastroenterologist Shazia Siddique. That is why MDCalc, the company Siddique joined last year, is launching a quality-rating system to apply to the more than 800 clinical tools and calculators that doctors use through its site.

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At a May MAHA Institute summit organized around the theme of “overmedicalization,” the health secretary announced an action plan to promote psychiatric deprescribing. At first look, it seemed innocuous. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) would study prescribing trends and publish fact sheets. Medicare would clarify how clinicians can be paid for the attentive work of tapering a patient off of a medication (which is already a part of routine clinical care). Webinars would teach prevention and “holistic” care. A technical expert panel would convene over the summer to make further recommendations. 

In reality, this announcement, and the steady stream of actions over the past 18 months, mark a quiet rewriting of the vocabulary of American mental health care — a massive rhetorical shift enacted while programs and protections that would actually solve the problem are dismantled.

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For the last year, a small California startup has been making extraordinary claims about the ability of its technology to potentially treat Duchenne muscular dystrophy — and maybe a slew of other genetic diseases, too.

The company, Sonothera, does not yet have clinical data. But it’s presented data in animals so stunning that other experts can’t quite wrap their minds around it.

“I find it hard to believe,” said Eric Olson, molecular biology chair at UT-Southwestern Medical Center. “It seems a bit too good to be true,” said Jeffrey Chamberlain, a longtime Duchenne gene therapy expert at the University of Washington.

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On this week’s episode of “The Readout LOUD”: The Kalshi prediction markets are coming for biotech, plus the controversy over an experimental Alzheimer’s disease treatment from Biogen. 

Kalshi, the maker of prediction markets, announced this week that it is expanding into biotech. Soon, you’ll be able to make bets on the outcomes of clinical trials and FDA drug reviews. Is that a good thing? We’ll discuss the issues with Jonathan Kimmelman, a bioethicist at McGill University who has researched prediction in clinical trials.

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Turmoil at the American Diabetes Association has taken a fresh turn, with leaders blocking editors at its flagship journal from publishing an opinion piece and first-person accounts detailing a high-profile controversy at the group’s own annual meeting just last month.

Nearly five weeks after five diabetes specialists were escorted out of a conference center in New Orleans for handing out reprints of an editorial expressing concern over cuts to federal research, the ADA’s flagship journal, Diabetes Care, was preparing to publish an editorial and several accounts detailing the episode, which drew national attention and prompted the ADA to both apologize for the evictions and pledge a formal review. But the organization says it delayed publication pending the outcome of that review — even as there is disagreement about how it is being carried out.

In the spiked editorial and personal accounts, now available on an open-access website, the diabetes specialists who were ejected in early June detail their treatment. Prominent ADA members, including past leaders and one who resigned in the wake of the confrontation, also express dismay over how the events were handled initially and afterward. All voice disappointment over the decision to suppress views opposing policies of the Trump administration while also disagreeing with how ADA’s leadership handled the episode and its aftermath. 

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Portal Innovations opened the New Jersey Innovation Hub at the HELIX in New Brunswick on Tuesday, launching a nearly 30,000-square-foot life sciences incubator with 16 founding member companies already committed — the largest pre-launch cohort in the company’s national network, according to founder and chief executive John Flavin.

The same day, BioNJ officially signed on as a foundational member, formalizing a commitment the life sciences trade association first announced in April.

Flavin said the turnout validates both the strength of New Jersey’s innovation ecosystem and the need for a connected national network built to help founders start and scale companies. The 16 founding members work across biotechnology, therapeutics and artificial intelligence.

What’s actually in the building

This is not co-working with a science label on the door. The space includes more than 140 lab benches and 80 desks, offices, large co-working areas, multiple conference rooms, on-site vivarium services and over $2 million in modern equipment.

That equipment number is the whole point. A two-person therapeutics startup cannot buy its own lab. It can rent a bench. Removing that capital barrier is how a state converts university research into companies that hire people, and it is the specific gap New Jersey has struggled with for years — plenty of discovery, not enough company formation.

Members also receive complimentary BioNJ membership, folding them into the state’s primary life sciences advocacy network from day one.

Who built it

The hub came together through an unusually crowded partnership: the State of New Jersey, Rutgers University, the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, RWJBarnabas Health, Hackensack Meridian Health, Portal Innovations, the New Brunswick Development Corporation, Johnson & Johnson, BioNJ and the broader HELIX ecosystem. Portal has also partnered with DEVCO and nearby universities including Rutgers and NJIT to spin companies out.

That list is the story behind the story. Getting a state authority, two competing hospital systems, a global pharmaceutical company, a public university and a trade association into the same building on the same terms is harder than raising the money.

BioNJ’s role

BioNJ President and CEO Debbie Hart said the membership reflects the association’s commitment to supporting innovation from discovery through commercialization. The organization will now convene the industry at the HELIX for committee and other meetings, operating from new space in New Brunswick alongside its existing Trenton offices.

BioNJ represents more than 400 research-based life sciences organizations, from the largest biopharmaceutical companies to early-stage startups, and has been at it for more than 30 years under the banner “Because Patients Can’t Wait.”

Flavin called BioNJ’s participation a meaningful endorsement, saying its leadership will deepen connections between startups, industry and research institutions and accelerate company formation in the state.

The economics

New Jersey’s life sciences workforce now tops 127,000 workers, according to a report released this month. It is one of the few sectors where the state can credibly claim national leadership, and one of the few where the wages are high enough to matter to the tax base.

But the market underneath is soft. Vacancy rates for life sciences space in Northern New Jersey rose in the second quarter, according to Savills. Lab space built during the boom is sitting. An incubator that fills benches with pre-revenue companies is a different product than an empty 100,000-square-foot building looking for a single tenant — and right now, the small format is the one moving.

The timing lands in a rough stretch for the state’s business reputation. The New Jersey Chamber of Commerce noted this month that New Jersey slipped from 30th to 31st in CNBC’s 2026 business rankings, behind New York, Pennsylvania and Connecticut. A 30,000-square-foot incubator does not fix that. It does give the state something concrete to point at.

What to watch

The number that matters is not 16. It is how many of those 16 are still in New Jersey in five years, and how many benches turn into leases somewhere else in the state. Incubators are judged on graduation, not occupancy.

For New Brunswick, the HELIX is the anchor of a redevelopment bet years in the making. Tuesday put tenants in it.

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